“For a brief time only,” Barrabus elaborated. “The Lord of Neverwinter renamed it in the days before the cataclysm-perhaps that’s why the angry volcano unleashed its rage on the city.”
“We know nothing of-”
“Of course you don’t,” said Barrabus. “For everyone within the city at that time was killed… everyone but one.” As he ended, he turned to face the first citizen directly, his expression explaining much.
“You?” a thoroughly confused Jelvus Grinch asked.
“I was here,” Barrabus replied. “When the volcano blew, I was in Neverwinter.”
“There were no survivors,” someone behind yelled.
“Then how do I stand before you?” Barrabus said. “I was here on that fateful day.”
In the crowd beyond came many gasps.
“Master Barrabus, you already have our gratitude,” said Jelvus Grinch. “There’s no reason-”
“I’m not lying. I was here.” He pointed down at the Winged Wyvern Bridge. “I was down there, actually, standing atop the Winged Wyvern when the first explosions rolled the ground beneath the city, when the first fireball punched into the sky. I was there when the mountain leaped from afar, charging down from the Crags, through that valley. I watched the river run gray and red with molten rock and ash. I heard the thunder of every roof being shattered by great boulders, tumbling from on high.”
“You’d be dead!” one woman in the crowd shouted.
“I should be, many times over,” Barrabus said with a helpless laugh.
“You have spoken of this before,” said Jelvus Grinch.
“You have no reason not to believe my words.”
“How, then?” Jelvus Grinch asked.
“Go to the center of the Winged Wyvern,” Barrabus said. He reached down and flipped his belt buckle, turning it into a knife. He held the blade up in front of the surprised Jelvus Grinch. Many in the crowd gasped once more.
“Climb under the bridge,” Barrabus bade him.
“Under?”
Barrabus laughed. “You will find it, ‘BtG,’ scratched in the stone with this very knife on the day I was certain my life was at its end.”
“You weathered the storm of the volcano under the Winged Wyvern Bridge?”
“Can I say it any more clearly?”
Jelvus Grinch started to respond, but simply couldn’t find the words. He glanced back at his comrades, who shrugged, nodded, or shook their heads.
“The Winged Wyvern Bridge,” Jelvus Grinch muttered in disbelief.
“A fr-An enemy once claimed that to be a stupid name,” Barrabus said. “Though I loathe him, I cannot disagree.”
“What do you want?”
“You wish me to work with you, to help keep you safe while you rebuild your city,” said Barrabus.
“Yes.”
“Rename the bridge.”
“Barrabus?”
“The Walk of Barrabus,” the grayish man replied. He easily envisioned the froth coming from the lips of Herzgo Alegni when he learned of it.
“It’s possible,” Jelvus Grinch said after glancing around to determine the mood of the crowd. “And you will join with us and serve as captain of the Neverwinter Guard?”
“No,” Barrabus answered without the slightest hesitation, and that, of course, drew more than a few whispers.
“I’ve already served you well,” Barrabus said. “And I’ll continue to be around-perhaps I’ll choose to help you again when the need arises, as it surely will.”
Jelvus Grinch blew a heavy sigh. “So much like the drow,” he said, and Barrabus perked up at that reference.
“Do tell.”
“Heroes wander through Neverwinter and aid in our plight, but none will stay,” one woman said.
“That’s my bargain,” said Barrabus. “And know that I’ll be more inclined to aid in your cause, whatever that cause may be, should I learn of the Walk of Barrabus.” With a curt bow and a little grin, the small man took his leave.
“Would that Drizzt Do’Urden had kept his swords in Neverwinter,” he heard one man lament as he moved toward the gate.
The name stabbed at the heart of Barrabus the Gray.
“Is he dead?” Sylora Salm asked, only half-jokingly. She looked at Jestry, splayed head down over the arm of a couch. His hand hung down and his fingers barely brushed the floor. His naked back showed bright lines of blood from many deep scratches.
“I’ve been known to kill a few,” Arunika replied with a laugh. She walked over and slapped Jestry hard on the side of his head, and he stirred and coughed. “But not this one. Not your pet. Not yet.”
“Not at all, I beg,” Sylora replied, reaching for her own clothes and wincing at a few of her own scratches. “When Jestry is of no use to me, I’ll take that pleasure as my own.”
“You believe he’ll live that long?”
“He’s a fine warrior.”
“You just told me that you intend to pit him against Lady Dahlia,” Arunika said, for indeed the two had shared much in conversation these last hours, their words punctuated by the heavy snoring of the exhausted Jestry. “How many times did you mention her prowess with that unusual weapon of hers?”
“Not enough times to do her justice, I admit,” said Sylora. “Kozah’s Needle is a mighty weapon indeed, and none have ever mastered it to compare with Dahlia’s proficiency.”
“And this one?” Arunika asked, and she grabbed a clump of Jestry’s hair and pulled his head up so that Sylora could see his face. The sight had both females smiling. Jestry’s lips were wet with spittle. Arunika let him go and his head dropped and bobbed. “Do you believe that he can stop her?”
“I hope it won’t come to that, but should it, I intend to offer him every advantage.”
Arunika smiled and headed for a dresser across the room. Sylora watched her, enjoying the view, her perfect humanoid form not blocked, but somehow enhanced, by those leathery devil wings.
Arunika reached into a drawer and fumbled with some ties. Then she reached in farther, up to her elbow, up to her shoulder, though there was no way the drawer could be nearly that deep. She felt around for a bit and retracted her hand from the obviously extra-dimensional bag, holding a small box. She moved back to stand in front of Sylora.
“A gesture of good will,” she said. “To seal our alliance.”
“I thought we’d just done that,” Sylora replied seductively, and Arunika laughed.
The succubus bent low in front of the sorceress and slowly opened the box, revealing a copper ring with an empty gemstone setting.
“A stormcatcher band,” the devil explained.
Sylora looked at it, and back at Arunika.
“It will catch the magic of Kozah’s Needle and turn it back on Dahlia,” Arunika explained.
Sylora’s smile widened. She gingerly reached for the band and pulled it from the box, holding it up in front of her eyes.
“I’m sure that my alliance with Brother Anthus will provide more to help you build your champion,” Arunika said.
The devil was right, Sylora knew. She wasn’t looking at Jestry as a man, a free-willed human being. He was her champion, or soon to be, and she would construct him as such, with armor, with a superior weapon, with this stormcatcher ring. He was an instrument, not a companion. Even in their sexual encounters, Jestry was no more to her than a means to an end, and woe to him if he failed in that role. He had purpose only in those goals Sylora determined.
Something stirred deep within the sorceress, some regret that she’d allowed herself to move to such a place of callousness. What forks in her road had she chosen? What decisions might she have made to alter this destination in her life?
Sylora let these questions fly away as she glanced back at the ring, reminding herself of how badly she wanted to see the corpse of Lady Dahlia. Perhaps she would raise the witch as a personal zombie servant. Perhaps, with Valindra’s help, she might even be able to allow Dahlia to retain enough of her former self so that her continuing torment at Sylora’s hand would wound her all the more profoundly.
Sylora peered through the ring at Jestry and considered the many tools she could bestow upon him to give him the edge he needed. What a fine beginning this ring would offer! Sylora grinned wickedly as she imagined Dahlia hurled backward by the lightning burst of Kozah’s Needle. She remembered the elf’s pretty face so very well, and in her mind, she twisted it into a look of sheer shock and stinging pain. That was how Dahlia would recognize the last moments of her life.